WILLIAMSPORT, LYCOMING CO. (WOLF) \u2014 A long-running legal battle over access to records from the 2020 presidential election in Lycoming County is headed back to Commonwealth Court following a recent decision by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.<\/p>\n
The state’s high court granted an appeal filed by former Lycoming County Republican Committee Chairman Jeffrey Stroehmann, but sent the case back to Commonwealth Court to reconsider whether digital images of ballots cast in person should be considered public records.<\/p>\n
The latest ruling follows an April Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision holding that cast-vote records (CVRs) \u2014 electronic records created when ballots are scanned or votes are recorded \u2014 are public under Pennsylvania’s Right-to-Know Law.<\/p>\n
Stroehmann sought access to digital ballot images through a Right-to-Know request submitted to the Lycoming County Voter Services Office. He argued a 2019 amendment to Pennsylvania’s Election Code made ballot images public, citing language related to mail-in and absentee ballots.<\/p>\n
The county denied the request, and that decision was upheld by the Pennsylvania Office of Open Records, Lycoming County President Judge Eric R. Linhardt and later the Commonwealth Court.<\/p>\n
In his ruling, Linhardt found that while cast-vote records are public, digital images of in-person ballots are not. He noted that unlike a cast-vote record, a ballot image could reveal the name of a write-in candidate and potentially a voter’s handwriting, which could identify the voter.<\/p>\n
The Commonwealth Court agreed, finding the ballot images constituted the contents of ballot boxes and therefore were exempt from disclosure under the Right-to-Know Law.<\/p>\n
Stroehmann appealed to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, arguing digital copies of ballots are different from the physical ballots themselves and should not be treated as protected ballot-box contents.<\/p>\n
The Supreme Court did not decide whether the images must be released. Instead, it directed the Commonwealth Court to reconsider the issue in light of its earlier decision finding cast-vote records are public records.<\/p>\n
The litigation is separate from another Right-to-Know case involving Heather Honey, president of Lebanon-based Haystack Investigations, who sought cast-vote records from Lycoming County’s 2020 presidential election.<\/p>\n
Although President Judge Linhardt ruled those records were public, the Commonwealth Court later reversed that decision. Honey was also denied access because she is not a Lycoming County resident. However, Stroehmann, former county Republican Chairman Donald Peters and state Rep. Joe Hamm, R-Hepburn Township, were permitted to request the records as county residents.<\/p>\n
Lycoming County Elections Director Forrest Lehman has said the county has provided all records required under the courts’ rulings.<\/p>\n
The latest decision does not require the release of the ballot images but ensures the legal dispute will continue before the Commonwealth Court.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"WILLIAMSPORT, LYCOMING CO. (WOLF) \u2014 A long-running legal battle over access to records from the 2020 presidential election…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":257064,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-257063","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257063","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257063"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257063\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257064"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}